Deputy Secretary Zoellick's April 18, 2006

C O N F I D E N T I A L STATE 066104 E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/21/2016 TAGS: PREL PGOV PTER PINR PINS PTER ECON EAID KDEM, KTIA, KPKO, MARR, MASS, MOPS, OVIP, AG, CD, LY, ML, SUBJECT: Deputy Secretary Zoellick's April 18, 2006 Meeting with Tunisian Defense Minister Kamel Morjane Classified by: D Chief of Staff Chris Padilla, Department of State. Reason 1.4.(d) MR, NG, SU, TS, TSCTI ¶1. (U) April 18, 2006; 4:00 p.m.; Washington D.C. ¶2. (U) Participants: U.S. The Deputy Secretary D Staff Aaron Jost Ambassador William Hudson Embassy Pol/Econ Deputy Susannah Cooper Tunisia Deskoff William Lawrence (notetaker) Tunisia Defense Minister Kamel Morjane Ambassador Nejib Hachana MFA Americas Director Mohamed Fadel Ayeri Defense Attache Taieb Laajimi Political Counselor Ali Ben Said (notetaker) -------------- Summary -------------- ¶3. (C) During a one-hour April 18 meeting with Deputy Secretary Zoellick on the margins of the 21St Tunisian- American Joint Military Commission (JMC),Tunisian Defense Minister Morjane announced the GOT would submit its draft of a Status of Forces Agreement to the Embassy very shortly and requested that a team of U.S. lawyers visit Tunisia to finalize the text. He also expressed Tunisian willingness to increase cooperation in regional peacekeeping -- particularly in sub-Saharan Africa -- and technical and economic assistance -- particularly in the four poorest Sahel countries that are the focus of the Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Initiative. He deflected U.S. calls for faster political reform by expressing Tunisian concerns about the persistence of an Islamist extremist threat throughout the region. The Deputy Secretary challenged this assertion by raising the cases of political participation by Islamists in Jordan and Egypt, to which Morjane responded that this was not relevant because Tunisians want to live in a secular society. On Darfur, even though Tunisia does not intend to send troops, he promised to pass on to President Ben Ali the Deputy Secretary's request for diplomatic assistance in moving the Arab League's position closer to that of the African Union. -------------- Economic Successes and Challenges -------------- ¶4. (C) Morjane stated that the high price of oil was causing serious problems with the Tunisian budget despite 5.5% economic growth last year. He attributed Tunisia's economic success primarily to the actions of President Ben Ali in th 1980s and 1990s and former Prime Minister Nouira in the 1960s and 1970s, during which Tunisia moved away from the centralized "planning" approach that had handicapped all of the other economies in the region. He cited a wide variety of statistics that set off Tunisia's economic and social success from its neighbors (life expectancy, literacy, education, etc.),and expressed gratitude for the large role that U.S. assistance played in these successes. Morjane characterized the U.S.- Tunisian relationship as a longstanding strategic alliance and suggested that expanded economic relations would further stabilize Tunisia by addressing the socioeconomic roots of terrorism. He explained how Tunisia's greatest challenge was not unemployment in general as much as employment opportunities for its quickly rising number of university graduates. -------------- Triangulated Assistance to the Sahel -------------- ¶5. (C) Morjane proposed triangulated assistance to the four poorest Sahel countries. He offered as a model what the Japanese have proposed to the Tunisians to provide technical assistance to the poorest African countries, capitalizing on Tunisia's linguistic and cultural affinities with the target countries. Morjane asserted that Tunisia has realized greater success in its Sahel development programs than outside donors and brings that experience to the table. With an estimated 24,000 university graduates without employment for the last three years, including 5,000 English literature majors, Tunisia would like to mobilize this population economically in Tunisia through foreign investment and developmentally through educational and assistance programs both in Tunisia and regionally. -------------- Pace of Political Reform -------------- ¶6. (C) On political reform, Morjane referred to Tunisia's deliberate implementation of reforms in a slow, step-by- step fashion. He cited the Islamist threat as the primary reason for this slow pace. He said that the crackdown of the early 1990s was justified because the Islamist An- Nahda party had violated the National Charter by using religion politically. He then argued that despite Tunisia's steady political reform underway -- nine political parties, truly independent trade union, etc. -- the Islamist threat remained essentially the same as that of the 1980s. ¶7. (C) Morjane deflected USG encouragement of a dialogue on political reform by expressing Tunisian concerns about the persistence of an Islamist threat throughout the region. He implied that there was no such thing as an Islamist moderate and that in an effort to wrest control of regimes all Islamists engage in doublespeak, particularly with foreign interlocutors. ¶8. (C) The Deputy Secretary argued that the cases of Jordan and Egypt offer interesting food for thought about how Islamists might play a role in political systems, but Morjane countered that Tunisians wanted a secular society. He argued that Tunisia's economic and social success was evidence of Tunisia's seriousness in moving the country forward and that many Islamists were simply "orphaned" leftists, Ba'thists, and other unhappy Arab nationalists who had simply found a more populist rallying cry in Islam, referring to opposition leader Nejib Chebbi among others. He also repeated the argument that the Islamists would have abolished democracy and freedom had they come to power, and he referred to former A/S Djeridjian's prediction of "one man, ONE vote, ONE time." He asked the U.S. to keep an open mind and to trust the GOT. He said that the Tunisian way, which was using moderation and socioeconomic development to fight the terrorists, would prevail in the region despite all criticism. He said that this struggle was not new in Islam and would not go away soon. -------------- Algeria and Libya -------------- ¶9. (C) On Algeria, Morjane underscored how important Bouteflika's HEALTH was to the success of Algerian reconciliation efforts, noting that many civilians are still being killed in Algeria on a daily and monthly basis. (Comment: The Tunisians reinforced this point via a statistical analysis at the JMC. End Comment.) However, he believed that Algeria was in the final phase of its struggle to defeat Islamism. On Libya, he said that despite Qadhafi's mercurial and unpredictable personality and Libya's lack of capable government institutions, improved relations with the U.S. were helping regional stability. He also contended that Libya's difficult time with its own Islamists has been underreported outside of the country. -------------- Darfur and Regional Peacekeeping -------------- ¶10. (C) On Darfur, Morjane said that Tunisia would not send troops because it felt could play a better role with its neighbors by keeping militarily uninvolved and by exerting a moderating political influence. Darfur, in an Arabic-speaking part of the continent, was simply too close to home. However, he did agree to pass the Deputy Secretary's request to President Ben Ali to try to bring the Arab League closer to the African Union's position on the crisis and reduce its quasi-defense of Khartoum's position. However, Tunisia was very interested in working closely with EUCOM and others to improve its peacekeeping capacity and, with more training and capacity-building, doing more in sub-Saharan Africa similar to what Tunisia is doing currently in Ivory Coast, Congo, and Ethiopia/Eritrea. -------------- SOFA -------------- ¶11. (C) Morjane announced that Tunisia has almost finalized its proposed text for a SOFA in response to our November 2005 diplomatic note and would present it in the coming days to Embassy Tunis. He requested that a U.S. legal team be sent to Tunis to negotiate the final details and concluded the meeting by requesting more U.S. official delegations to Tunisia in every potential field of cooperation. MINIMIZE CONSIDERED RICE